Saturday was the 83rd anniversary of the unprovoked Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor—a date that Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared would live in infamy. Visiting the site of the attack, Maggie Phillips considers the changing ways Americans conceive of World War II:

By 1944, religious faith was explicit among the highest levels of American wartime leadership, with much of the run-up to D-Day assuming a positively sacral character. FDR delivered a lengthy prayer he penned himself on a live D-Day broadcast. Heard by more than 100 million people worldwide, including Anne Frank, the broadcast is by some reckonings the largest mass prayer in American history. General Dwight Eisenhower’s message to the Allied forces on D-Day also entreated the “Almighty God” to bestow his blessing “upon this great and noble undertaking.” General George S. Patton distributed 250,000 prayer cards to every soldier in the Third Army to pray for heavy rains to break.

Meanwhile, at the memorial for USS Arizona, sunk by Japanese bombs—killing 1,177 sailors—Phillips finds a very different attitude:

An abstract “Tree of Life” motif appears on a monument outside, and in the structure’s windows, but it is difficult to find anything written on whether it was intended to be religious in nature. And while the USS Arizona Memorial does have a “Shrine Room,” it is a literal secular shrine to the ship’s fallen.

Considering the current state of Israel-Arab relations, Ghaith al-Omari writes

First and foremost, no ceasefire will be possible without the release of Israeli hostages and commitments to disarm Hamas and remove it from power. The final say on these matters rests with Hamas commanders on the ground in Gaza, who have been largely impervious to foreign pressure so far. At minimum, however, the United States should insist that Qatari and Egyptian mediators push Hamas’s external leadership to accept these conditions publicly, which could increase pressure on the group’s Gaza leadership.

Washington should also demand a clear, public position from key Arab states regarding disarmament. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed this position in a June letter to Saudi Arabia and France, giving Arab states Palestinian cover for endorsing it themselves.

Some Arab states have already indicated a willingness to play a significant role, but they will have little incentive to commit resources and personnel to Gaza unless Israel (1) provides guarantees that it will not occupy the Strip indefinitely, and (2) removes its veto on a PA role in Gaza’s future, even if only symbolic at first. Arab officials are also seeking assurances that any role they play in Gaza will be in the context of a wider effort to reach a two-state solution.

On the other hand, Washington must remain mindful that current conditions between Israel and the Palestinians are not remotely conducive to . . . implementing a two-state solution.